Large Space: My bookshelves are located in my living room, my dining room, my family room, my home office, and at my work office.
Large Number of In-Coming Books: Not only do I buy books quite often, but I also receive books in a variety of other ways:
- Review Copies through Blogging (ARCs, NetGalley, TLC, etc)
- Review Copies through Work (possibilities for courses)
- Donations (colleagues, students, friends, family give me their unwanted books when they don't know what to do with them)
- BookMooch and SwapTree
- LibraryThing and GoodReads: Swaps and ARCs
Large Numbers of Out-Going Books: In an effort to not suffocate under piles of books, I have to maintain a steady stream of out-going books:
- SwapTree and BookMooch
- Blogging Giveaways
- GoodReads and LibraryThing Swaps
I really enjoy lending my books out to other people. But I want them back 99% of the time. And I don't just hand out books to one or two people. I let family, friends, colleagues, students, pretty much everyone borrow my books. A way to keep track of who borrowed what has been a necessity for a decade, but it took me this long to actually do it.
Once I had downloaded the spreadsheet, I went through every book on every shelf in my home (over 1000 books) to cross check 1) I actually had it and 2) where it was shelved. That took place over about four days, and I still haven't done my four shelf book case at work. I was amazed by how unorganized I let LibraryThing get. I - apparently - keep forgetting to update LT when I give books away (and I still haven't fixed that). This is a pretty big deal since, according to my new spreadsheet, I have given away almost 600 books in the past four years. And that number will get even higher after I determine how many of my books from the work office I've given away.
In EFFORT NUMBER TWO to not grade, I started a Tumblr account: http://eclecticeccentric1.tumblr.com/ so head on over and follow me!
I have a hard time keeping up on my Google Reader, I have practically abandoned responding to every comment on my blog, and well there are a ton of other things I feel like I don't have time for. And yet, I added another activity to my ever-increasing list of THINGS I DO ONLINE. What can I say? I really don't want to grade papers.
What are some new things you've been doing to avoid those old things you should be doing?
I've always admired your organization and number crunching of bookish things. I've got no such thing going on at my house. Who knows what I have, who knows what I've lent. I used to be this kind of person when I worked, but now I've just given up on such things. Call me lazy. As for the online thing, I really struggle with it. I try to get to 75% of the blogs I follow, but no way I can respond to comments. I have Facebook, and I have Twitter (which I use for lurking more than anything). How can we have normal balances lives with all this stuff? I just shake my head.
ReplyDeleteI do the same with my LibraryThing vs real books every so often. I just need to make sure it's up to date! I am thinking now I'm going to have to change it up when I go home next as I left books with my parents and want to specify which I have and which I don't have at my apartment with me! Always fun to do :)
ReplyDeleteWow, that's an amazing amount of organization! I haven't been able to get myself organized with an online book tracking thing to have a good sense of my entire library. It's a big project I just haven't felt up to tackling yet. But it seems like LibraryThing might be the place to do it, rather than Goodreads. Thoughts on that either way?
ReplyDeleteI also have a Tumblr I'm playing around with. So far I like it as a place for random stuff, but I've had a few ideas for more focused Tumblrs to start... someday, when I have all the time in the world :)
So I'm sitting here typing this and just to the upper left of my field of vision is a pile of papers that need grading. Some of the papers in that pile are currently on their third weekend trip home so I really do need to get to them.
ReplyDeleteBut now I'm thinking, just what is the Tumblr thing everyone is talking about......
Wow, you're so organized, and you have so many books! I have a LibraryThing account, but I haven't really used it. It never occurred to me to use it to organize my books. :)
ReplyDeleteLOL that cracks me up. :D I've been actively trying to quit most of my online stuff. I deleted my tumblr account, turned over the GLBT Challenge to Christina, deleted all my personal blogs and merged personal stuff with The Zen Leaf, and now the only five places I ever interact online are my blog, twitter, goodreads, sparkpeople, and facebook (though rarely there). It feels good not to have more than that out there!! :D
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be much more organized than I am! I am certainly trying to be better about it though.
ReplyDeleteSandy - I wish I could be more relaxed about the book borrowing, but it's like a weird obsession for me to know where my books are!
ReplyDeleteAmy - I really enjoy it too. Organizing books is fun for me.
Kim - I definitely prefer LT for book organizing; GR is better for socializing though. I like the random nature of tumblr posts. So far I'm having fun with it.
James - LOL! A teacher after my own heart! Tumblr is fun so far; it's nice and quick and random.
Darlyn - I'm a bit anal retentive with my books. I love playing with them, organizing them, cataloging them, etc. I'm a geek!
Amanda - I think I'm doing less with what I have, but having more if that makes sense. Maybe not the best idea, but I need to shake things up from time to time.
Stephanie - I have fun with organizing books! It's something I enjoy doing so it's not that much of a hardship.
Wow, as much fun as grading papers is, I cannot imagine why you would seek a way out of it. But brava for your amazing organizational skills. Maybe you should consider becoming a librarian. No kidding. And no grading required. :) You might be distracting yourself but at least your distractions are productive ones! I'm a little jealous.
ReplyDeleteI am really impressed with the way that you keep track of your books, and I know that I could never be as organized as all that! I give away a lot of books too, and I have such trouble trying to figure out how to catalog those! I might have to steal some of your ideas and make them my own, as the system I've got going right now is not working very well :/
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you gave away 600 books in 4 years is amazing! Instead of doing homework, I'm usually reading or commenting on blog posts. :-)
ReplyDeleteWow - you take procrastination very seriously! LOL I admire your book organization, too. I had a spread sheet where I was tracking everything, and then I got behind on entering new acquisitions, loaners, etc. I always keep track of my review copies, but that's the only category that is currently up to date! Maybe this summer when we're on break from homeschooling? In the midst of reading and lesson planning for fall, of course. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm reading blogs to avoid working on my research project, but you've taked procrastination to a productive level.
ReplyDeleteAh, you practice the fine art of "productive procrastination" as I often do. The philosophy being, of course, that if I'm doing something productive then it's, like, no big deal that I'm not doing the thing I should be doing because, hey, I'm accomplishing *something* I deem to be important. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe whole "donations" category is a one of those blessings that's a total curse. All the people in my life say, "Oh Megan, she hearts books. I'll dump my books, even those (*especially* those) of dubious quality on her so that they will stop taking up space at my house and start taking up space at *her* house instead! Brilliant!"
In order to avoid the more daunting tasks in my life, I'm chipping away at my Google reader by challenging myself to whittle each blog's unread posts down to under 10. Laughable, I know. Wait, *are* there more daunting tasks than a feed reader with more than 1000 unread posts lurking menacingly?? ;-)
I have a stack of research papers staring me in the face right now as well. I resent having to bring them home with me, so the times that I do, I end up just letting them sit in the car :/
ReplyDeleteI can barely keep up with blogging, Twitter and Facebook so I doubt I'll be branching out more online any time soon.
I am impressed! I love to lend out my books too. i just want the m to be loved (and returned).
ReplyDeleteWow ..you have a lot of books. I could catalog all mine in a few hours. I'm not allowed to keep a lot of books. They come in and then they must go out. I have one bookshelf of "keepers" and one for "to read." That is it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't know what Tumblr is and I'm not sure I want to. I barely have enough time to blog as it is.
I tend to clean to procrastinate (grading or otherwise). That's usually how I know it's a dire situation; I hate cleaning.
ReplyDelete